1. Field of The Invention
Applicant's invention relates to large capacity ovens for commercial or institutional preparation of food.
2. Background Information
Presently, commercial or institutional food preparers, particularly of meats and breads, face high equipment costs, high utility costs, ovens which do not cook foods evenly throughout their cooking compartments, equipment space restrictions, and/or ovens which tend to overly dehydrate foods during the cooking process.
Commercial ovens available today are, at best, the products of compromise between the need for uniform heating, a low dehydration effect, and reasonable operating costs. Circulation of heat and air within an oven is necessary for uniform heating and may be achieved in currently available ovens. However, uniform heating is presently achieved by equipping ovens with large flues and/or fan-equipped vents to obtain the necessary circulation of heat and air within the cooking compartment. The result is a high volume flow of air through the oven's cooking compartment which tends to dehydrate food as well as escalate utility costs because of the great loss of heat. Equally troublesome is the fact that ovens which conserve energy and tend to lessen the dehydrating effect of cooking by retaining more of their heat do not tend to cook as evenly.
It would be desireable, therefore, to provide ovens for large scale preparation of foods which simultaneously cook foods uniformly throughout their cooking compartments, minimize dehydration of foods, and conserve energy. The ovens should ideally be designed for requiring a minimum of expensive components without sacrifice of quality or durability. Finally, it would be desireable for such ovens to be designed to effectively comprise two separate ovens, individually controllable as to cooking conditions, but which collectively require less space than two stand-alone ovens of like capacity.